Examples of construction of these known scan antennae may be found in Japanese literature. Watanabe et al. thus describe in the review AIAA PAPER 84-0672 1984 an antenna of the offset feed type shown in FIG. 5.
This antenna has a fixed feed 80, but includes a relatively complex set of mobile reflectors, namely two first rotary parabolic reflectors 81, 82 then a flat reflector 83 forming the periscopic feed system (beamwave guide (BWG) feeder). The resultant beam is then fed to the two auxiliary 84 and secondary 85 reflectors which are also mobile, before reaching the main fixed spherical reflector 86. Since the whole of the intermediate reflectors are mobile, sometimes about several axes, the assembly presents very considerable constructional requirements, incompatible with the constraints applicable to antennae or board satellites.
AKAGAWA et al. (AIAA PAPER 76-303) also describes a periscope feed antenna shown in FIG. 6. This antenna is also intended for tracking geostationary satellites. It is formed of a fixed feed 90 feeding a main slightly mobile reflector 91, after reflection of the feed beams from three secondary reflectors (92, 93, 94). Among these secondary reflectors, two are mobile, one allowing movement of the beam for tracking the geostationary satellite in its deviations in a direction perpendicular to its orbit, and the other providing tracking in the orbital direction.
Again, this system is only accomplished by means of a set of several mobile reflectors, which is not suitable for applications in outer space.